


Dream on

by mrshopkirk



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bittersweet Ending, Blood and Injury, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Civil War Team Captain America, Clint Barton Feels, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Eventual Happy Ending, Friendship, Guilt, Heavy Angst, Hopeful Ending, Hurt, Hurt Clint Barton, Hurt Scott Lang, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt Wanda Maximoff, Injury, Major Character Injury, Multi, No-one dies, POV Steve Rogers, Pain, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Clint Barton, Protective Sam Wilson, Protective Scott, Protective Steve Rogers, Scott Lang is a Good Bro, Steve Rogers Feels, Swearing, Team Cap - Freeform, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug, happy end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-16 03:13:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11245155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrshopkirk/pseuds/mrshopkirk
Summary: After Steve rescued his teammates from the Raft, they all went into hiding in Wakanda. When Bucky comes out of cryo, they decide it’s time to go back out into the world. Each is refusing to go their own way, deciding sticking together is the best move but in doing so they draw the unwanted attention of the government.





	Dream on

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based on the song “Dream on” by Aerosmith for @hellomissmabel's 1k celebration shuffle challenge on Tumblr. It's written in Steve's POV.  
> First posted on Tumblr.

How did we get here? This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. I didn’t know what to expect when we left Wakanda but this isn’t it.

I look around. Debris is falling all around us. The sound of war is deafening but the sound of the innocent being hunted down is the worst I’ve heard. It makes it hard to remember the sound of laughter I heard only yesterday when Wanda told a joke that had everybody in tears, tears of joy for the first time in years. At least for Bucky and I. Bucky had doubled over in laughter instead of his body collapsing after taking a hit or a bullet. A day. That’s all we had. One lousy day after leaving the safety of Wakanda. They had surrounded us immediately. It seemed they brought the entire army. There are so many. They’re everywhere and they have us cornered in a building that’s being shot to pieces.

> _Every time when I look in the mirror_   
>  _All these lines on my face getting clearer_   
>  _The past is gone_   
>  _It went by, like dusk to dawn_   
>  _Isn't that the way_   
>  _Everybody's got the dues in life to pay_

“Steve!”

I try to locate where the voice is coming from or who it is. The ringing sound in my ears doesn’t stop and I briefly wonder if they have developed a new weapon that targets my enhanced hearing. It’s like a million church bells at once.

“STEVE!”

Amidst the settling grey flecks of dust, smoke of a nearby fire curls around a hunched down figure dressed in black and a pair of blue eyes staring at me in horror. I see his mouth moving but my body doesn’t. My legs aren’t injured but they refuse to move. I sees the lines on Bucky’s face. The wrinkles I noticed when they were frozen behind the glass capsule he was kept in. It’s where I stood every day whether it was in silence or talking non-stop about everything and nothing. Wrinkles that weren’t there when I last saw him as a young Bucky, his face smooth as a snowflake when he fell. I had wondered where they came from, what horrors and pain etched those lines on his face. When I look in the mirror I see those lines on my face too, like cuts and scars of a lifetime of fighting, seeing things I shouldn’t have seen, doing things no man should do, of loving and losing. But that past is gone. It went by like dusk to dawn.

“Steve!”

Another voice calls my name. This time it’s closer by. I squint my eyes, trying to see who it is. Everybody in life has dues to pay. I certainly have. So has Bucky. Sam too. All soldiers do. But not her. The way she’s lying there, her face is soft, beautiful, like she’s asleep. Why should she have to pay? The only thing she has to pay for is for wanting revenge on her brother, for following me. Her youth was stolen from her as was her family, her country. Now her long chestnut hair is draped over her face like a silk scarf. A calloused hand cups her face to look at her. I see his mouth moving. I know he’s yelling at her. The blood trickling over her face is his. He’s bleeding, hurt, injured. But he still breathes.

“Steve! We have to get her out of here! They shot straight through her stomach!” Clint looks back at her. “Wanda? Wanda, please? What the fuck is wrong with you Maximoff’s huh? You’re all going to take a bullet? You’re just like your brother, aren’t you?” His tears are staining her face. “Goddammit, Wanda. Stay with me. Don’t you dare do this! STEVE!”

“I’m not a fucking doctor! What do you want me to do?” It’s a cheap shot. I know that but it’s all I got. I have no shield, no gun, no uniform. Left my courage in Wakanda too so it seems.

> _I know nobody knows_   
>  _Where it comes and where it goes_   
>  _I know it's everybody sin_   
>  _You got to lose to know how to win_

They had targeted Wanda first. We knew defeat when it stared us in the eye and we laid down our weapons hoping to bargain for our lives. But Wanda, no matter how sweet and gentle, can’t lay down her arms. They just shot her in cold blood. She had clutched her stomach and dropped to her knees, hands red with blood. Nailed to our spot, we had watched the scene in disbelief when they opened fire on us too. I dove to the right. Bucky, Sam, Scott and Clint to the left while Clint dragged Wanda with him.

> _Half my life_   
>  _Is books written pages_   
>  _Live and learn from fools and_   
>  _From sages_   
>  _You know it's true, oh_   
>  _All these things you do come back to you_

I should have known. I curse myself. For crying out loud, Rogers! You should have known they weren’t going to take any of you alive. You fool. Haven’t you learned anything in those 100 years? I think back at the Smithsonian, the book they sell there, ‘The life of Captain America,’ and wonder if they’ll include this end or if it will be just half of my life in there. The half they can use.

Will they include Scott Lang, father of little Cassie? Will they tell the world that he refused to leave our side? Will they tell the tale of how he keeps telling Bucky stories about Cassie to keep himself from drifting off and not coming back? Will the book tell how Bucky presses down on the wound on Scott’s leg trying to stop the bleeding ignoring the gunshot wound in his own arm? Will they dedicate a chapter to the man called Sam Wilson whose leg looks broken in three different places but has served his country in more ways than one? Will they write how Clint Barton gave his all time after time? Will they even mention Wanda? I hope they do. Maybe people will learn from our story.

I squeeze my eyes shut and cover my ears, trying to will the soldiers away. Maybe it’s just a dream or maybe it’s my worst nightmare come true.

> _Dream on_   
>  _Dream until your dreams come true_

Surrendering isn’t an option. They made that very clear by taking down Wanda. I tried again but they declined my offer to take me and let them go. They even declined Bucky’s surrender saying that ship has sailed long ago. It’s all of us and rather dead then alive. Without a word we seem to have agreed that we’ll all go out the same way we came in, together, and right now we’re well on our way to meet our maker. I pat my pockets in one last desperate attempt to save their lives or at least one of them and put all my hope in the little outdated device in my hands.

“I’m sorry. There are no words for how sorry I am. Leave me. Let them have me.” I suck in a deep breath. “Even Bucky if you have to. But please, save them. Please, come for them.” I’m sure I have never sounded more defeated in my life. “Hello? Hello?” Nothing.

So this is how it feels, how it feels to be turned your back on. I had hoped that the laughter we shared and the tears we shed together were enough to come for today. But it’s okay. It’s one of my dues to pay. I lived a life of no regrets until today. This is my biggest regret, looking at my friends, blood and tears flowing together. A sharp pain in my face and lips harshly bring me back to reality, a reality in which the screams sound louder than before, in which there is more blood than a few moments ago, more gunfire, more pieces of the building that was supposed to give us shelter crumbling and exposing us more and more. I look at all of them trapped on the other side. We all know. This is it. It’s all we have left of today and today is all we have left.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble but I know they can’t hear me although they seem to understand me perfectly. Bucky winks at me, one final lopsided grin on his face. Scott slowly turns his head from Bucky’s lap and gives me a joking thumbs up. “Still a big fan of you, Captain,” he whispers in a rare quiet moment. Clint is crying with a lifeless Wanda in his arms, rocking her back and forth. Sam is slumped against a wall, his leg outstretched, a bone sticking out.

> _Sing with me, sing for the year_   
>  _Sing for the laughter, sing for the tear_   
>  _Sing with me, just for today_   
>  _Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away_

The earth trembles and I look around for incoming tanks. It’s overkill, I think, but who am I these days. Scott points to something in the air above him and I see something come in what looks like a drone. Jesus Christ, tanks and drones. They probably only want to find teeth left of us. Loud clangs and thuds surround us. The earth trembles again and then again and again. The building collapses. There are shouts and screams. I hear my name. I hear everyone’s name. I scream everyone’s name. Where are they? I can’t see anything with all this dust. The rubble on the ground cuts into my hands when I try to crawl to where I saw them last. I try and locate Bucky’s screams. The noise seems to get louder and louder. Screams of the other soldiers mix with these of mine. Gunfire is coming from all sides now merged with blasts from whatever new weapon they brought in. I see huge figures everywhere but blood is trickling down my forehead and in my eyes. The last I see are lights shining in my eyes and cold metal gripping me and then it’s over. Is this what dying feels like? Flying? I doubt I’m going to heaven but I welcome the feeling with open arms.

I open my eyes and see a dim light shining instead of the blinding beams when I last closed my eyes. I feel soft, clean sheets under my hands instead of rubble. I feel stitches and gauze on my face instead of blood. I hear the soft bleeps of a machine instead of screams. Tears make their way down my face when I see the man next to me.

“You came.”

“I always come. Just ask the ladies.”

The lame joke isn’t worth the pain when I chuckle but the fact that he’s here is worth everything. I take a deep breath and brace myself.

“Where,” I clear my throat. “Are they…”

“It was a close call for Scott. And Wanda,” his eyes drift away, “she pulled through but we had to get her back three times during surgery. She’s a tough one, that one.” I guess he notices the look on my face. I had offered him my life but also Bucky’s. Has he taken me up on that offer?

“He’s here too. Room next door.”

I sigh in relief. “Thank you, Tony.” I reach out for his hand but it’s too far away. He hesitates but bridges the gap at last. “What now? They’ll come for you too now.”

“I lost a lot of suits getting you guys out of there. So I don’t know, Rogers. But we’re here, aren’t we?” He rubs his face and sighs. “Maybe the good Lord has other plans for us tomorrow but today? Today we’re still here.”


End file.
